But the most promising I've seen so far came from user david getsoutwho said:

"Back in the day dionysius lardner was a professor at london working with hershel to build big telescopes dionysius would talk shit about the infinate universe and us being at the center due to human perception or somthing complicated like that."(SIC)

I had never heard of Lardner, but some quick Wikipedia and Googling shed more light on matters.

Lardner sounds like a science populariser and commented/lectured on the work of people like Babbage and Herschel.

I can easily envisage two scientists being a bit snarky toward someone who does that. It is not uncommon these days!